The World Ocean Circulation Experiment was the most comprehensive global- scale ocean study ever undertaken. It aimed to quantify the role played by the oceans in the earth’s climate. The observational phase ran from 1990-1998 and from 1984 to 2002 the International Project Office was hosted by the UK, first at Wormley and finally in Southampton. The UK WOCE programme was established at the James Rennell Centre in Southampton starting in 1990. The decade of the 1990s and the WOCE arguably marked the start of modern-day marine science. It became possible to have round-the-clock monitoring of the oceans from satellites and in-situ measurements and these were assimilated into global, eddy-resolving models. In addition to a large number ofjournal articles WOCE produced ground-breaking publications • Four atlases documenting the physical and chemical state of the oceans in the 1990s. • A book “Ocean Circulation and Climate – Observing and modeling the global ocean” (sometimes referred to as “The WOCE book”). • An online WOCE data set. In 2014 a sequal to the WOCE bookwas published “Ocean Circulation and Climate – A 21st century perspective”. It describes the present state of knowledge of the oceans’ role in climate and the revolution that has taken place in in-situ ocean observations.

In 2010 Colin led a drafting group charged with producing a"Statement on Climate Change" for the Geological Society of London. His group updated thestatement with an Addendum in autumn 2013, designedto come out at the same time as the latest statement from theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC). The more he got into the GSL statement, the more he realised that there is a fascinating tale to tell that has not yet been really well told, despite several books on palaeoclimates having appeared in the past 2 decades.Four years and one PhD's worth of research later, his book "Earth's Climate Evolution" is about to be published by WILEY/Blackwell.

One of Colin's main conclusions is that we live within a rather narrow window of natural climate variability, mostly governed over the past few thousand years by variations in the Earth's orbit, modified slightly by variations in the sun's output. While many scientists like to say that the Little Ice Age came to a natural end in about 1850, it is clear from the orbital data that we shouldstill be in it, and from the solar data that the rise in temperature since 1850 has little to do with solar variability. The main warming post-1950 certainly has to be due to something else, and the logical conclusion (using the 55 million-year-old Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum as an indirect analog) is that this modern warming and the associated ocean acidification must be mostly due to the recent rise on CO2. You can't argue with a rock, and the rocks tell the same story as the IPCC, giving us some extra confidence that the IPCC maywell be right about our likely future.

Colin will be lecturing on this topic at NOC at 4pm on Friday May 22 2015.People interested in purchasing the book can qualify for a 20% discount by quoting the promotional code EES14. Orders can be placed with WILEY by phone (01243 843294) or e-mail (cs-books@wiley.co.uk).